>I don't remember these organisations pretending to be democratic (let alone having legions of fans online stating that they are) Does it matter? They're still

>I don't remember these organisations pretending to be democratic (let alone having legions of fans online stating that they are) Does it matter? They're still a bigger stumbling block to democracy than the EU's various collections of appointed positions are. All of the anti-democratic features you mentioned are present in other international bodies, but amped up to 11. It is unfair to single out the EU as wholly responsible for this. Also, I feel the need to defend the EU on one other point: ratcheting. If you have a free trade area in which member nations are allowed to pick-and-choose each little bit of the EU treaties, then you lose the benefit of the EU, and just get a bunch of top-heavy bureaucracy with no other benefit. Furthermore, the things that the EU tends to be really adamant about - such as freedom-of-movement[0] - are essential for making the bloc work at all. The EU has such dogged fans because people don't want things like freedom-of-movement taken away from them, and nobody's made a serious proposal for fixing the EU's problems aside from "leave and go back to having borders everywhere" or "federal Europe". Alternatively, they're Americans who happen to oppose strict immigration control[1] and, thus, oppose euroskeptics purely by association. [0] This is also why the UK's original "free trade without freedom of movement" proposal was shot down so quickly. The biggest mistake the west made was convincing the whole world to let goods move faster than people do. This constitutes a transfer of power from labor to capital. [1] As you might have already guessed from the previous footnote I am an American who opposes strict immigration control. I'll at least entertain the thought of the EU needing reforms, though.